Desktop Files Disappear

Jan 9, 2016

my desktop has been acting up. My files keep being deleted from my desktop. I used Everything Search to see if the files are just being moved, and they're not. They're completely wiped out. I ran a Windows Defender and it didn't come up with anything. I can't think of any software that would be causing it.

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After upgrade to windows 10 (from 8) I notice that my "active" desktop folder is C:UsersTempDesktop I restart my computer and now my desktop is C: Users "myUser"Desktop.The problem is - that C:UsersTempDesktop folder with all of my sub-folders completely gone.What can I do? Is those folders are hides anywhere?

I am running Windows 10 x64, my computer shuts off for what ever reason, power outage or what not. No error message and when it reboots i have no icons on my desktop. I have checked to see if a new desktop was created and that wasn't it. Normally it is off a restart/shut down of my PC but it does not happen all the time. I have check to see if "view icons" is turned on and it is. I have also checked to see if the show icons in control panel is checked and that is as well. I have also restarted my computer manually to see if it will fix itself and that does not work either.

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So, this started about two or three weeks ago, but I haven't really had time to check into it. Apps (all that I have tried recently) don't see files I have on the desktop, if I need to browse to them.

Example: I scan a sheet and save as a .pdf (or .jpg, or .tif, or whatever else) to the desktop. Then I try to attach it to an email. I browse for the attachment from within the email (Windows 10 Mail or an online webmail) and the desktop is empty in the explorer window. However, if I minimize everything, all my icons, including the file I'm looking for are present. I have double checked in the explorer window that I am looking for all files, or a particular type of file. It doesn't matter.

From the desktop itself, I can click on this .pdf file and it will open in Adobe Acrobat Reader. However, if I open Adobe Acrobat Reader and attempt to browse to the file to open it, the desktop is empty.

The same happens in Adobe Lightroom, when I want to import an image file that is located on the desktop.

It also happens when I am browsing for a file to upload to Dropbox, Box, or various other places for work or home.

This happens on all networks and it happens whether or not Windows Defender or my antivirus is active or not.

However, if these files are located elsewhere (Documents, or C:, or D:, for instance) everything works as it should, without a problem. where to start?

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I upgraded my win 7 to 10 like a month ago, and since then I have a strange problems on my (desktop) computer.

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This is in regards to files disappearing and my desktop changing. I downloaded and installed Windows 10 last night but did not do any modifications until this morning. When I started my computer today, I couldn't find my files. I found them in my user profile. So I moved them to the desktop in a new folder. Also, the desktop was not my previous desktop in regards to shortcuts. Which was fine because I added them back.

I then changed the desktop theme to the flower theme. I then went to restart and selected Update and Restart. When the computer rebooted, my desktop them was gone, and now my old shortcuts from 8.1 were on there. AND the file folder I created with all my files is gone.

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Some days ago I logged as always on my Windows user, but there were no files on the desktop. I found that I'm on another user, which doesn't exist. After some research I found how to get my files back (went to Users/USER/Desktop) and cut>pasted them to the "new" desktop. After restarting my computer and logging in I was back on my old user. The problem is I've cut the files before and now I can't find them. There are only two users (Default and kluse_000 (ME)). Both desktop folders are clean. Tried to search for lost files with "find" command, but it takes too much time (should I leave it running?).

every time I try to launch a program or try to open the file explorer my task bar information disappears and the screen goes black momentarily. None of the programs or file explorer end up working. I have included a video showing what happens.URL...

Okay I just upgraded to Windows 10 this morning and I had all of my downloaded files from other websites all in the desktop under a folder called software after the upgrade it opened up Windows 10 and ran me through the tutorial, and had me reboot after I change some settings. when it rebooted it took about 20 minutes said something about some new features and "we want to show you new features" and others some other junk.

Finally when I did pull the explorer back up the only thing that was there was the recycle bin, my computer, and the downloads folder which was empty I went through every inch of my hard drive I even went over it with undelete Pro and still no traces of my files they were archive files and setup files for software. when I finally did find a trace of one of my old folders, the only thing that would it would tell me was that it was unavailable and that it must've been moved or deleted I took a picture of the error message and can't find answers anywhere..

I just upgraded to W10 from W8.1 and have lost my desktop short cuts and files. How do I recover them. During the upgrade process it said all files were transferred properly. I have looked at windows.old, but don't know what to look for or how to recover them from that file.